10 AUSTRALASIAN 



New Zealand Government representative, to whom much 

 praise is due. This consignment, owing to the method of 

 packing, having been so successful, Messrs. Hopkins and Clark, 

 of the Parawai Apiary, took steps to procure some colonies, 

 and two were received in due course from Ventura County, 

 California. These, too, were received in splendid condition, 

 thanks again to the care taken of them by Captain Cargill. 

 Following upon this I obtained from America two other con- 

 signments, in all twenty nuclei and two full colonies. An 

 event of considerable importance in the history of bee-keeping 

 in New Zealand was the first successful importation of queens 

 direct from Italy. After some correspondence with Mr. Full- 

 wood, of Brisbane, I decided to give the matter a trial, and 

 the result was that four out of eight queens shipped at Naples 

 by Mr. Chas. Bianconcini on 10th of November, 1883, arrived 

 in good condition at the Matamata Apiary on the 11th of 

 January, 1884. Another shipment was made later in the same 

 year, when six out of twelve queens arrived alive. Since the 

 first importations numbers of Italian queens have been reared 

 and distributed over the colony ; fresh importations have been 

 made by other parties, and the greater number of New Zealand 

 apiaries are now being Italianised. These bees flourish splen- 

 didly in this country, and will, I am quite sure, eventually 

 replace with profit the German or common black bee. A full 

 account of the Ligurian bee is given in another chapter. 



IMPROVED SYSTEM OF BEE-KEEPING IN NEW ZEALAND. 



Till within the last five or six years bee-keeping here was, 

 with a few exceptions, in a very backward state. The hives 

 in general use were composed of old gin cases, candle boxes, 

 and in fact any wooden material in the shape of a case that 

 was handy to the bee-keeper when his colonies happened to 

 swarm. As a.rule, no preparations were made for the swarm- 

 ing season, and it was not until the swarm was in the air that 

 the need of a spare hive was realised. These boxes in some 

 cases have been so neglected that they have actually fallen to 

 pieces through age, and the bees left exposed to the weather. 

 The sulphur pit has, I am sorry to say, not been unknown 

 here, and it is in use even at the present day. In a German 

 work on bees the following epitaph is given, which, as 

 Langstroth remarks, might be properly placed over every pit 



